The present invention relates to a method of selling a right associated with a game through a computer network.
Generally, contests such as sumo, baseball, football, go, shogi and chess take place before an audience. Mass media such as television, newspaper, magazine and the like communicate the progress of contests to the general public. Players (individual players and teams) have a large number of fans.
As the notability and popularity of players increase higher, their values as advertising spokesmen increase. Enterprises choose players or teams with high popularity and notability to participate in commercial advertisements in television and magazines for increasing the effectiveness of advertisement for their goods. A commercial advertisement contract between a player and a sponsoring enterprise is generally made directly by the player or through an agency or a group to which the player belongs. The payment, which is determined through negotiations, varies depending mainly on showings (issue), past results, popularity and talent of a player. In other words, only an extremely small proportion of players who have made good showings can make commercial advertisement contracts and obtain high payments.
Players in a slump, on the other hand, will obtain low advertising payments, and will encounter difficulties in entering into commercial advertising contracts. Ordinary persons, managers of small-scale companies, and ordinary proprietors, in turn, encounter economical difficulties in making contracts of television commercials with famous players.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,207 discloses a conventional reverse auction method. This conventional method may be used by players themselves to sell their advertising rights and sponsor rights. However, it has been difficult for players to directly find advertisers using the conventional auction method.
Small-scale companies, personal stores and individuals may establish home pages (websites) on the internet for advertising their stores or goods at a low cost. The home pages and advertisements may be found by those who intend to look for the stores and goods, but are not visited by many persons and are not very effective.